A Writing Blog

Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

I’m glad that my novel writing went better than my blogging. No, I wasn’t a winner of the challenge, but I did write 22,000 words for my novel. For me, this was a good start.

I learned a few things about composition as a result of writing so many words in a short space of time:

•Ending phobia can be conquered…I wrote my ending
first.
•Writing out-of-sequence keeps writer’s block at bay.
•It is possible to write over 5,000 words in a day.
•Outlining really works! I feel that what I have so far is structurally sound, and a few interesting subplots arose spontaneously out of my drafting, so I don’t think that I lost anything from outlining.
•Reading about writing helps me work out trouble spots in my composing process.

So, what a day. I am working two jobs today back to back. Good thing I wrote almost 3,000 words yesterday because so far today I have exactly 19–on my iPhone in “DocstoGo.” I have heard of Japanese novelists creating entire novels on their smartphones. I don’t think I could do that, especially since I have a migraine on top of everything else.

This is the conundrum. If I write on lined paper, I have to retype what I write, which I think will lead to editing–a NaNo no-no. I know from experience that if I let the inner editor loose, this novel-writing experience will grind to a slow pace. The whole point of the challenge is to reach 50,000 words in 30 days. On the other hand, I may be too tired to write when I get home. So, I have a choice: it’s tedious typing on my iPhone or a dwindling word count. I just saw some tweets from Writer’s Digest advocating a motivational plan for Wrimos–I see an iPad in my future.

Anyway, just wondering if real writing can be achieved on the go using a phone…Schubert wrote music on his shirt sleeves…I suppose I could get over the tediousness of typing on a phone.

So, technically this is day two of the challenge, but I am just going to bed after day one. Here is the scoop. I have 2,796 words written, but this word count is cheating because I already had 1,300 words written before November. Actually, I’ve had my outline for some time, so I don’t know when I started writing the novel. Anyway, I’m pumped because I just wrote 1,400 words in 45 minutes. I really need to write 1,700 words a day to win the challenge, which requires 50,000 words. I was worried that as a teacher I might not be able to do that…too much to do, so little time…but I should be able to write an hour a day and accomplish the goal.

Here are three ways that I am using to break through writer’s block:

1. I gave up the pride of being a pantser and actually wrote an outline. Horrible I know! But after six unfinished novels, I figured that my problem was losing inspiration half-way through. Who wants to read a story without an ending?

2. I actually wrote the last chapter first. The fear of the ending looming over me is gone. Now I can just focus on the story itself. I can always change the ending later.

3. I am skipping around. Writing chronologically just doesn’t work for my ADHD brain. I’m picking scenes and fleshing them out to deeper and deeper levels–like sculpturing.

Tomorrow I am working two jobs and going to an evening event, so we shall see if I get any writing done!

I have waited for the stroke of midnight. The time has come. After six unfinished novels, I’m finally going to finish one of my stories. I plan to commit to the NaNo challenge and write a 50 k novel in the month of November. Here is the website if you are interested in taking on this challenge with 300,000 other people: NaNo Blog